


A Broken Smile

by Re0rient



Series: Life Ain't a Fairytale [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Re0rient/pseuds/Re0rient
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It befits a ghost of a girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Broken Smile

Men falter under her smile, that dangerous plastic grin she shoots before she leans over the counter and pounces. Her prey don't know it's a ghost that weakens their knees and hardens them...elsewhere. They don't know that she killed-devoured-her beloved in another world, a world that brought happy endings to everyone but the broken girls with killer smiles and the heartless boys with empty eyes.

They don't know she fell in love again with a hunter who taught her how to control her curse. They don't know he was snatched away by an evil queen with a smile just like hers.

  


She doesn't know either. All Ruby knows is vodka and Scotch on Friday nights and Graham's cool fingers against her skin, and Granny's sigh of resignation when she takes him home to a perpetually vacant inn. She knows _him_ , how he clumsily rids her of her clothes as their bodies fall on her red bedspread in a sweaty tangle of limbs. She knows how his kiss leaves a bittersweet taste on her tongue and how he gazes into her eyes as he thrusts and how he moans when he loses control and collapses on top of her. She knows how he traces the curve of her smile with his lips and how he murmurs her name in his sleep at 2 AM in the morning and how he tightens his arms around her when he wakes up and sees that she's still there. And when he tells her he loves her, she wonders if leaving Storybrooke is such a good idea after all.

He always leaves before daybreak, and she dresses in skirts that are too short and pops the top buttons of her uniform before she walks into the diner. He's never far behind her. Her fingertips graze his wrist as she hands him his usual, bacon and eggs, and she hears Granny clear her throat in warning as the bell chimes and the Mayor walks in, shiny in her sleek suits.

The Mayor slides into his booth, all business as usual, and Ruby serves the woman her regular morning coffee, black, with a fake smile plastered to her face. She moves on to other customers, but her gaze always fleets back to them when the Bitch pats him on the hand.

_Do you know I fuck him on the nights he's not with you?_

_Do you know how bright his eyes are on those nights?_

There are many, many things Ruby would love to say to the Mayor, but every morning she lets it slide and the Mayor walks out of the diner without a backward glance. Graham follows his boss, a dog on a leash, but he winks at Ruby and when Ruby smiles back, her smile is genuine, whole.

He comes back for lunch, scares away men like Dr. Whale who need to stay far, far away from her, and makes plans for dinner.

They could have gone on like that, strangers in the night, all clandestine winks and glances, but they become careless, as people do, and one evening Sidney walks in on them. Graham backs away, makes a futile effort to straighten his hair, and Ruby scrambles to button up her top as she hops off the counter, her heels clacking along the linoleum.

_How can I help you, Sidney_ , she asks warmly, fake smile back on like nothing has happened, but the damage is done. And it cannot be erased.

The next day they make the Mirror's gossip column. The day after, the Mayor threatens to shut down the Diner, on some contrived accusation of public indecency, as if-

It doesn't matter if it's plausible. The Diner is their primary source of income, the only means by which she and Granny manage. And the Mayor can take it away.

Desperate souls go to Mr. Gold, but even the most powerful man in town can't get _out_ of town, and the two lovers turn away, dejected.

"What's this?" she asks when he hands her a red glass wolf from the pawn shop.

"A lucky charm to keep you safe," he murmurs against her hair, eyes closed. "Maybe you won't forget about us."

"I won't forget," she scoffs, and melts into him, her smile already fading. It's their last night together.

"Everyone forgets in this wretched town."

The next day, he goes back to being the sheriff and she goes back to being the waitress, and they become ghosts once more, pawns in a power struggle.

Eventually, the weather changes and they do forget and all traces of _them_ disappear with the wind.

The sheriff lies next to the mayor, eyes wide and vacant. There must be something more to this life. There must be a way to _feel_ something other than boredom and resentment.

Across town, the waitress keys an asshole's car, the latest in a long string of them, and stumbles back to her own car. She cries and asks her lucky charm to _please, if she can't fucking leave, just let her veer off into the woods and wrap around a tree and never be seen again_ , but it doesn't. It never does.

When Granny asks her-tentatively-how her night was, she simply smiles.


End file.
